Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg: Anonymity Online 'Has To Go Away'

[onehandle]

Source: Huffington Post

Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director, has a fix for cyberbullying: stop people from doing anything online without their names attached.

Facebook requires all members to use their real names and email addresses when joining the social network -- a policy that has been difficult at times to enforce, as the prevalence of spam accounts or profiles assigned to people’s pets suggest.

Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, argued that putting an end to anonymity online could help curb bullying and harassment on the web. “I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” she said during a panel discussion on social media hosted Tuesday evening by Marie Claire magazine. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has also made this suggestion, calling online anonymity “dangerous” and predicting that governments will eventually “demand” that people use their names for all online activity.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/randi-zuckerberg-anonymity-online_n_910892.html

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The real truth:

Ad giants Facebook and Google want to know exactly who you are so that they can help corporate America better target advertising to you.

And the Right wants to know exactly who you are so that you will be scared to fight them.

Facebook and Google are not our friends.

[leveymg]

1. The NSA and DHS hate, HATE anonymity on-line, and would criminalize it, if we let them

They want to know who you are and what you're going to do, and with whom, before you do.

[krabigirl]

50. Yep.

[alp227]

2. As a woman, Randi Z. should be familiar with "creeping"

She's a sellout, elitist, empathy-lacking corporate fool (I'd use another word but yeah).

[chrisa]

58. I don't think she knows anything about the internet.

Forcing people's names onto the internet would be impossible. What would they do, regulate every single webpage? They (the govt.) can't even get illegal websites like Al Qaeda ones off of the internet.

And then, yeah, there's the issue of creeping. :yoiks:

[Morizovich]

70. I'm not even sure she's a human!

Have you seen her eyes? :scared:

[msongs]

3. he just wants to eff u out of more money by marketing everything about you.

[alphafemale]

4. wait...hasn't much of this bullying taken place on Facebook?

I enjoy Facebook. It's enabled me to find old childhood friends I'd have had no way of finding otherwise...

But...really?

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Skinner, don't listen to them!!!!

I would hate to have to stop being a bully just because I would have to put my "real" name here. And I would probably get fired from my job if they could find me here!

[Odin2005]

6. Fuck off, you benificiary of nepotism.

[Dappleganger]

7. Untrue, I've read PLENTY of nasty, bigoted, hateful posts by people using their real names

in online settings. PLENTY.

[Tikki]

8. I joined Facebook...Joined a Charles Darwin group, an Atheists group and a married....

over 25 years group. Soon after, I started getting e-mails for Christian dating.
I quit Facebook.


Tikki

[alp227]

17. lol i never get those emails despite having facebook for 3 yrs, maybe they go straight to trash

b/c my spam filter. sorry to hear about your experience. which email provider did you use, I've used Gmail since 2007 and have been using Facebook since 2008.

[joeglow3]

72. Why would you use your primary e-mail account?

Seriously people, this crap is not hard to circumvent. Set up a spam account and use that for almost ANYTHING not related directly related to personal individuals you know.

[Muskypundit]

9. This is more than a little creepy.

They want us to use our real names to stop online bullying. Yeah. Fucking. Right. Its actually downright terrifying to imagine the internet to be regulated like that. Its one of the last few bastions of free speech, for the most part.

[Evasporque]

11. JSonline experimented with facebook comments on articles

on articles...guess what...

RW trolls disappeared.

THey went back to anonymous posts...

EVERY ARTICLE is hammered by RW spew...in seconds.

[JDPriestly]

25. If nothing were anonymous, then bullies would go after people, find them

in their homes and workplaces.

We don't have to frequent websites on which we feel bullied.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. CRUCIAL point! Zuckerberg and Schmitt's stated concerns about cyberbullying are Orwellian

Orwellian inversions of common-sense assessments of online privacy.

"War is peace". "Freedom is slavery". Online privacy makes cyberbullying easier".

[Incitatus]

28. Exactly. Psychopaths, stalkers and rapists would love to be able

to track down anyone online so easily. I recall reading on another thread a few days ago that there are groups dedicated to identifying DU members.

[freshwest]

30. Can you imagine what the Norway shooter would have done with more addresses?

[quakerboy]

37. It cuts both ways

Groups who would likewise be open to public scrutiny. Can you imagine what would happen if the people posting on FR or Faux boards had their words attached to their real names and life?

I do not agree with forcing everyone to use real ID on the Net. But it is not so cut and dry as a bad thing, in my opinion. My objection is more on principal.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

43. True, with online privacy cyberbullies can hide, and interest groups can post lies.

with impunity. But don't forget bullies don't have to stay online. They can read something online they don't like, trace the posters' IDs, and go out and stalk,, harass, or commit violence on them in the real world.

"Forcing everyone to use real ID on the Net ... NOT so cut and dty as a bad thing?" IMO, only if you are a greedy corporation seeking ever more advertising dollars, or if you are an even worse kind of stalker.

Even advertising stalkers can ruin qualtiy of life for tens of millions of people. The "hit rate" for email spam currently is low (the figure 2 percent comes to mind but may or may not be accurate). What would happen to the volume of email spam if hit rates rose to 20 or 30 percent? Telephones would ring all day and all night with unwanted sales pitches, "Do Not Call" registry or no "Do Not Call: registry. We'd have to go back to snail mail, and go to the postoffice with jumbo garbage bags for the overflow from our snail-mail boxes.

[Incitatus]

45. Then you have the issue of potential employers reading everything you post on the Internet.

Good luck getting a job if your potential boss is a RWer.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

56. Great point!! And any idiot HR flunkie would be able to attach google hits for your ID

to your resume before it goes to Department heads.

Could add 5 pecentage points to the long-term unemployment rate, easily, IMO.

[quakerboy]

57. Trust me

they do that anyway.

[Incitatus]

64. Nobody knows who I am here.

I know they do Google searches for your name and view your social networking sites, but there are still places where we can be anonymous from others.

I really don't see their dreams of eliminating anonymity on the Internet ever happening, but hypothetically it would do a lot more harm than good.

[quakerboy]

55. Neither does anyone else

if you are using real id, it is at least theoretically possible to trace who might be stalking also. And I believe that the past few years have shown that our supposed internet privacy is full of holes anyway. The Govt is spying on us at will, and Fox news is spying on the govt and us at will. Comcast can see everything that I do on the net, and I have no doubt that they have little compunction about sharing that with others, unless they believe they will get caught and punished for it, which is highly unlikely.

As to advertising stalking. If you are required to use real ID, so are they. So they have no more immunity to harass you in anonymity. You then have the same ability in return, to know who it is sending you spam. Spam messages, in the mean time, would be far easier to block. Right now the ever changing rotation of spam messages is dealt with via spam filters that are imperfect at best. Imagine if they had to use their real ID. Bam. Block just those who are doing it, and never chance missing the rare real message from an old friend you forgot, which ended up in the spam box.

Then apply that real Id on the net to the scams bilking old people of their savings in one way or another.

I believe it is far from cut and dried "bad" that people seem to think it is. I agree that forcing real id on the net should not happen. But in considering any idea, I find it helpful to think through as many of the implications as I can, without jumping to knee jerk stances and ignoring other sides of an idea.

In some ways it would be a boon to the corporations and to creepers. In other ways it would expose hate speech authors to the light and consequences of their actions, and bring light to who is sending what to whom via the internet. I think that having this one area of relative anonymity has an overall positive effect on free speech and allowing thinking people to connect ideas, to peruse and posit strange concepts without immediate fear of social retribution, and is worth keeping.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

60. Shell corporate IDs are not equivalent to personal IDs. That's the main fallacy in your

post, IMO.

Corporations each can gin up THOUSANDS of subsidiaries through which to stalk potential suckers for their wares. Good luck trying to trace back corporate spam.

And corporations have limited legal liability for any of their actions. Good luck trying to hold them accountable for email spam, unwanted phone solicitations, and junk mail.

Once they have your permanent personal ID, you have no effective recourse. You can move, change your phone number, or switch ISPs, but they'll still find you again eventually.

[quakerboy]

69. True enough

I thought about the power differential after posting.

As a separate, mostly philosophical issue, if corporations are people, how can they be owned? how can they own each other. Isn't that slavery?

[JDPriestly]

54. I figure DU has my real name.

Benjamin Franklin published letters to the editor under pseudonyms.

And the Federalist Papers were published under pseudonyms I believe.

Prohibiting the use of pseudonyms on the internet would violate American traditions.

[Rex]

68. This is garbage, the powerful will cover up their tracks

and the working class will have to find one more thing to worry about right now.

[Evasporque]

10. I agree..the RW trolls hide behind it..

we had some huge "I am threads..." in the past...

[tpsbmam]

12. Oh bullshit. I'm on FB only for political stuff.....and used a totally

fictitious name. No way in hell am I going on a site like that and using my real name and giving lots of information about myself out. My contacts are limited too. The only reason I even bother is that stuff I post then gets posted on friends' pages who DO have lots of contacts. Frankly, I forget about it most of the time and only post on it when I come across an article I want to go viral.

[MilesColtrane]

13. This is why I quit FB last year.

The Zuckerberg's philosophy is just what governments and global corporations want.

[cprise]

14. An antidote to Randi Zuckerberg:

http://geti2p.net

[boppers]

15. They don't need your name to target you with ads.

It does not work that way... think about it, how many "Mary Smiths" are out there? For ad targeting, they use cookies (in conjunction with referrer trails and click throughs), because *those* can be made unique, regardless of how many people you try to be, or how many login names you use, (etc.)

This is more about individuals being personally accountable for their actions, and the behavior shifts that come with that.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

[Dawson Leery]

16. Never post personal/private information online.

With that said, Zuckerberg makes is $$$$$$$ from selling personal information to marketers.

[Trillo]

18. What about trading anonymity?

I'm just wondering if there's some hypocrisy being propagated.

[Harry J Asslinger]

19. "Better behavior without anonymity"

Was the same specious nonsense that Blizzard put forth in trying to justify displaying its customers' forum names with their real names.

One of the disturbing things here is the premise that lies in that statement. It is tacit "policing" under the threat that whomever one might offend in some manner will find one by name and do one harm.

[Ninjaneer]

61. Excellent point. n/t

[harvey007]

20. Anonymity protects free speech

In most countries in this world, people are black-listed and targeted and tortured and imprisoned for expressing their thoughts or advocating a cause.

That's why the notion of eliminating anonymity is so absurd.

Unless, of course, you like the idea of living in an Orwellian world where every person's words and deeds are tracked and monitored and controlled.

[corpseratemedia]

21. people can know who you are and you'll get bullied online anyway

wont stop it.

[onpatrol98]

22. Hogwash...

Bunch of hogwash...bullies are bullies regardless. Bullies were around long before the illusion of anonymity on the Internet. There must be some ulterior money making motive behind their spin.

[aquart]

23. New Twitter has already given away my identity.

I'm not even slightly happy about it.

[onehandle]

42. Out of curiosity, how did that happen?

I was one of the many people who scoffed at Twitter in the beginning, but now find it to be a valuable resource for information.

I have three main accounts, only one of which is associated with my real identity. I find their security settings to be the most straightforward of any social 'network.'

[Gormy Cuss]

24. Wow! More than one sociopath in the same gene pool. What are the odds? n/t

[nebenaube]

44. Probably just a group-think victim. n/t

[NYC Liberal]

26. While I agree that trolls and the like would be almost nonexistent without

anonymity..there is no way in hell I want to see it go away.

How many great writers and posters would go away if they had to reveal personally identifying information?

Also, many great writers and thinkers have written under pseudonyms for various reasons. Ben Franklin did.

Just turn off the computer if someone is bothering you. If it's someone you know in real life who is taking the bullying online, then you know who it is already and can deal with it.

[Cherchez la Femme]

27. Facebook, especially, is invasive and unrelenting.

Once they have your data they not only do not let it go but disseminate it far and wee with no regard for the privacy rights of its members.

It is impossible to 'disappear' from them -- is the main reason why I've never gotten an account there.

[KansDem]

76. You and me both...

I recently attended my 40th high-school reunion and ran into old classmates who asked me if I was on FaceBook. They wanted to keep in touch.

I politely said "no" but that I'll look into it.

Of course, I won't for the reason you stated.

[Incitatus]

29. I don't even see how this is possible.

Many people have access to the same computer or to the same WiFi. Who knows the real identity of the person online. The can only know who the person the ISP gave the IP address to.

[Downwinder]

31. Everybody wants a picture ID.

Every bogus check writer has lots of ID.
Have to get an eyeball scan? what happened to the photo recognition software?

[humblebum]

32. Would close down DU IMO. nt

[prete_nero]

33. wrong!

Like many said thsi won't fix any bullying.
Anyone ever been bullied in real life? Did the person only do it while wearing a mask and bland non marked clothing? Doubt it. Most of the time when a kid is REALLY being bullied hard the person doing it doesn't care if they are known and in fact LIKE knowing that the victim knows exactly who they are and can't do a damn thing about it.
Most of the instances of horrid bullying that lead to suicides lately have not been restricted to ONLY online abuse.

TL;DR The only thing this would cut down on is internet trolling, which is NOT bullying but rather an extreme form of boorish behavior meant to greif forum posters. Bullying would continue despite everyons name being known online.

Sounds like its time to give up the ol FB page.

[Downwinder]

34. Why not just let each web operator make the rules for his site?

If I don't like his rules, I can go elsewhere. Works for paywalls.

I got along without FB and Google before they existed. Bet I can get along without them when they are gone.

[Incitatus]

36. Zuckerberg and Schmidt are not talking about just FB and Google.

I don't see how anonymity online can ever go away completely, but from their statements that seems to be what they want.

[quakerboy]

59. Because something like this would probably have to be enforced

via ISP. If Comcast and Verizon and the other broadband players all require it, are you going to be able to find an alternate?

[humblebum]

35. Anti-American? unpatriotic? yep.

"Centinel","Federal Farmer","Brutus","Cato","Publius",and dare I say - The Lone Ranger and Superman, etc.?

[saras]

38. When our government demonstrates an ability to respect and obey the law...

Anonymity is necessary, and protected, for the same reason that secret voting is protected, even though you can't observe secret voting to ensure that no cheating happens.

[humblebum]

47. I agree with you that anonymity is necessary and protected, but voting...

well? I would seriously question the secrecy of the secret ballot anymore. In this age of rigged voting machines and anything computerized - that I am afraid is just a pipe dream.

[dipsydoodle]

39. Never bothers me posting a photo of myself

Even if it was taken in 1946. :rofl:

[onehandle]

46. Lookout!

Menacing Pigeon!

[alp227]

51. hi, Ted Kennedy look-alike! n/t

[Odin2005]

66. Too cute!!!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

41. they are right. anonymity leads to much immoral behavior

including bullying

[Ninjaneer]

62. You know what else leads to "much immoral behavior" in some people?

Existing.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

63. while your smart-ass response sounds cool, anonymity and de-individualisation

has been shown to lead to unethical behavior, whereas merely existing has not

[Gormy Cuss]

67. and open identities enable stalking and employer prejudice.

There are two sides to this coin and IMHO what we need is the right to anonymity, not pressure to identify.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

71. absolutely. we have a right to privacy and imo that extends to maintaining

anonymity online.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

73. Tell that to DUer Cali. She said something about an anonymous customer and lost her job over it.

Other DUers have lost jobs over posts on DU.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

75. i am not debating the merits of allowing people to be anonymous

all i am agreeing to is that anonymity leads to unethical behavior. that does not supersede the right to privacy

[hunter]

48. Given an anonymous forum...

... this is further evidence that the Zuckerbergs are bullies.

But we already knew that.

[krabigirl]

49. Ugh, I can't stand Facebook. No idea why I even have an account.

[Uncle Joe]

52. They're attacking political websites, without anonymity corporations and corrupted government

officials become the bullies.

I imagine Zuckerberg would have been happy exposing the authors of the Federalist Papers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_papers

According to historian Richard B. Morris, they are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer."<3>

At the time of publication, the authorship of the articles was a closely guarded secret, though astute observers guessed that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were the likely authors. Following Hamilton's death in 1804, a list that he drew up became public; it claimed fully two-thirds of the essays for Hamilton, including some that seemed more likely the work of Madison (Nos. 49-58, 62, and 63). The scholarly detective work of Douglass Adair in 1944 postulated the following assignments of authorship, corroborated in 1964 by a computer analysis of the text:

Alexander Hamilton (51 articles: nos. 1, 6–9, 11–13, 15–17, 21–36, 59–61, and 65–85)
James Madison (26 articles: nos. 10, 14, 37–58 and 62–63)
John Jay (5 articles: 2–5 and 64).
Nos. 18–20 were the result of a collaboration between Madison and Hamilton.<1>

The authors used the pseudonym "Publius", in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola.<4> While some historians credit Jefferson's influence, it is Madison who often now receives greater foundational credit as the father of the Constitution despite his repeated rejection of the honor during his lifetime. Madison became a leading member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia (1789–1797), Secretary of State (1801–1809), and ultimately the fourth President of the United States.<5> Hamilton, who had been a leading advocate of national constitutional reform throughout the 1780s and represented New York at the Constitutional Convention, in 1789 became the first Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held until his resignation in 1795. John Jay, who had been secretary for foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation from 1784 through their expiration in 1789, became the first Chief Justice of the United States in 1789, stepping down in 1795 to accept election as governor of New York, a post he held for two terms, retiring in 1801.

Thanks for the thread, onehandle.

[KeepItReal]

53. Doesn't she owe her paycheck to FB selling personal information of users to companies

...that want to sell stuff?

The less anonymous an Internet profile is, the easier it is to collect marketing stats to sell.

[klook]

65. Yeah, let's all just get RFID chips implanted

That way, there's no anonymity anywhere!

[KansDem]

74. Yeah, but we still don't know who's funneling money to the GOP through the US CoC...

We suspect it includes foreign companies and countries, but they're anonymous...